October 24, 2017 local time.

Night in Houston.

1/

Located on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Mexico, the city has a warmer climate and humid moisture than the drier interior of Texas. On this day in late October, it was almost eleven o'clock in the evening, and the temperature finally dropped a little.

But in the locker room of Team Rocket at the Toyota Center, everyone was stuffy, and some simply covered their hairs on their heads, allowing the heat from sweat to evaporate from all over their bodies and fill the air. There was no one in the whole locker room to speak, and the scorching air seemed to roast people.

"Come, take it out and talk about it." After a moment of silence, head coach D'Antoni clapped his hands, as if to wake everyone up, "The ball is lost, but fortunately it's just a regular season game." ”

In Game 4 of the season, the Rockets lost 90-98 to fellow Southwest Division rivals, the Memphis Grizzlies.

"My bad. I didn't keep up close enough with a couple of pick-and-rolls in the final quarter, giving Conley a chance to misplace. "The first to break the silence was Ariza. In the fourth quarter, the Grizzlies' Mike Conley was on fire, and he almost single-handedly helped the Grizzlies turn the tables with three points and assists.

"No, no, it's not your problem." It was PJ Tucker who interrupted Ariza, "Evans' three-pointer, I took it lightly. I pulled a little far, and the goal went in and they got up. ”

"Well, as I've said before, losing is not anyone's problem." Seeing someone speak, D'Antoni put his hand in his suit pocket and slowly guided the conversation, "Losing is the problem of the whole team. There are places where we don't get it right. ”

"Learn your lesson and win back the next one." Someone spoke in a corner of the locker room. In two days, the Rockets will embark on three road trips, starting with a challenge to the 76ers in Philadelphia, a team that includes a group of talented young players.

"James, tell me about it." The coach handed the invisible microphone to Harden, "If you have the opportunity, what would you like to improve on this game." ”

"I'm going to say that we're running a little bit less." Hearing his coach call his name, James Harden took off the Beats headphones he was wearing, hung them around his neck, thought about it and spat out a string of words, "We did a good job when we were ahead. The tactics arranged by the coach were all played, and several three-point shots were made, and there were breakthrough points. These 'patents' of Team Rocket, we still have to continue. But in the fourth quarter we seemed to freeze, maybe a little careless, thinking too much about winning. I still have to run and rotate. Stick to our ways. ”

“Go Rockets！” Someone responded to Harden with slogans.

"The most important thing is to believe in ourselves. Winning is our belief! James Harden arched his palms into an arc, his eyes widened in anger, and he made a loud noise.

“Go Rockets！” Yang Yiming also shouted loudly with his teammates.

The sound of the slogan suddenly shook the entire locker room, as if it had washed away all the dull heat that had just shrouded it.

2/

In the discussion just now, Yang Yiming didn't speak, sitting in the corner, he silently listened to his teammates' speeches, but the thoughts in his heart seemed to be still on the court.

Specifically, he was haunted by the ball that occurred early in the fourth quarter, before he went off the court.

Maybe that goal went in, we could extend our lead to 14 points, and the game would have gone completely differently. Yang Yiming said to himself.

In fact, his performance in this game was not bad. Because the team has always maintained the lead, even if the opponent is changed from the weak Mavericks to a resilient opponent like the Grizzlies, everyone is quite relaxed. This ease also includes the head coach D'Antoni, who directs the game. At the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter, when the lineup rotated, in order to allow the main players to get enough rest, he arranged for Yang Yiming to play for up to 8 minutes.

"Go, young man." D'Antoni patted him on the shoulder and encouraged, "Don't think about the score, come on." ”

Yang Yiming also reciprocated this trust. Amid the cheers of the home fans — the decibels of cheering seemed to be a little louder than the last one — Yang Yiming made his debut. He had a breakthrough and a mid-range shot, as well as a 2+1 opportunity to cause the opponent to foul, and although he missed the free throw, he still cut down 6 points and added 5 rebounds.

When Yang Yiming appeared again in the fourth quarter, the opportunity to surpass the statistics of the previous game seemed to come soon.

At that time, the Grizzlies' shooting rate dropped sharply, and after a few rounds, Yang Yiming had seen the road clearly and was determined to take a risk. As he expected, the Grizzlies' 24-second offensive time whistle shot went off the basket, Luke Bamot grabbed the rebound, and Yang Yiming had already grabbed a step and ran past the halfcourt!

With a long pass, the ball was caught by Yang Yiming jumping up.

There was no one in front of him at this time!

There are only empty baskets.

Yang Yiming saw the audience under the basket in front of him stand up, and the court seemed to be full of commotion about celebrating.

He glanced behind him with only a Grizzly player in a dark blue jersey chasing him, and he was at least two steps away from him.

Show a slam dunk?

Let's keep the ball up and down. Yang Yiming said to himself. With this in mind, he dribbled the ball again, then jumped high, his right arm was lightly relaxed, and with a flick between his fingers, the basketball was picked into the air, ready to bounce into the basket.

The safest way to make a layup.

But at the moment when the basketball was about to touch the rebound, a black figure suddenly gathered like a dark cloud before a summer rainstorm, and its two arms were like two bolts of lightning, breaking through the sky above Yang Yiming's head. Crackling, two consecutive sounds, like the last thunder, the basketball was slapped on the rebound twice in a row.

The black shadow fell with Yang Yiming, and he was knocked down by this force and fell to the floor.

The ball didn't go in!

Another Grizzlies player who followed up picked up the rebound. The cheers that were ready to celebrate just now were replaced by the sighs of a whole stadium!

3/

"Still thinking about the goal you didn't score?" Seeing his thoughts, when he was disbanded from the locker room, Coach D'Antoni deliberately walked to Yang Yiming, who was left behind, and whispered to him.

Well. Yang Yiming snorted and nodded.

"Don't overthink it." The coach gestured to the Rockets players walking in front of him, "Look at them." These are the things that each of them has experienced. ”

Well.

"Rest early, there's training tomorrow morning." The old man's care was very concise and to the point.

"Okay."

"I heard you've found a place to live?" Yang Yiming was about to walk away, when D'Antoni suddenly thought of this again and asked.

"yes, I moved in yesterday."

"You're all settled, I'll go over and see it someday." Clicked on Yang Yiming and Yu Xiaochun walking beside him with a notepad, Coach D'Antoni squeezed his eyes as a goodbye, and then turned around and walked into the press conference room next to him.

Pushing open the door, a flash of lights greeted him.

"If you were given another chance, would your tactics and personnel be any different in the fourth quarter?"

'We created some chances today as well, we just didn't put them in. D'Antoni is not afraid of such reporters: "There will be such tough matches waiting for us in the future, I know very well. But I don't need to be any different, we just need to keep creating chances and keep shooting until we get more shots..."

"—that's the only difference I need to emphasize."

"Then James, our offense was not good at the last minute, will you make adjustments?" The Houston media is turning the finger back to James Harden. In this game, he had 22 points, 5 rebounds and 8 assists, but he also had as many as 7 turnovers, as the brains of the team on the court, he missed two three-point shots in the last moments, and was blocked by Gasol, and the timing of the pass seems to be up for debate.

"If I had to do it again, I'd still fight like that. Maybe I should have made all those free throws that I had conceded. Harden and the angry man in the locker room just now seemed to be like two people, he leaned back in the chair, and his tone was unusually calm, "But at the critical moment, the ball will still be in my hands, and I will still handle the ball in what I think is the most correct way." ”

"—It's a responsibility, I've never doubted it."

4/

Earlier in the day, Yang Yiming and Yu Xiaochun sat in the living room of the newly rented house, eating a simple American breakfast.

It was their first morning when they moved to their new home in the United States.

Maybe it was Clint Capela's joke at the team dinner a few days ago that Yang Yiming really rented the side room of the mansion that Jose introduced to see, and had moved all the luggage from the hotel, and also bought some food to fill the refrigerator.

In fact, it is said to be a side room, but the facilities of this new residence are not bad at all. The partial house is a few dozen meters behind the L-shaped building of the mansion, which was originally used as a guest room, there are three bedrooms of more than 200 square meters, not only all kinds of modern furniture and electrical appliances are readily available in the house, there is a small tree outside the house separately, a swimming pool for the guest family is built in front of the house, at this time, the sunlight in the early morning is refracted on the water, and then through the floor-to-ceiling glass of the living room, sprinkled throughout the room.

The bright white space is filled with the fragrance of coffee.

Through the gap between the trees, on the larger grass in the distance, Yu Xiaochun saw a jogging figure. It must have been the day before they had met, Penelope, José's wife's best friend in the country.

In the sun, her long, wavy hair tossed and tossed, exuding an alluring sheen.

Yu Xiaochun looked a little dazed.

A figure that has long been gone in memory seems to be slowly approaching at this moment.

"What would have happened if I hadn't come to the U.S. to study?" He couldn't help but ask himself.

Unfortunately, this is basketball.

That's life.

The world of basketball is not welcome if.

The same goes for adult life.